At the Red Raider Club Kickoff Luncheon, Athletic Director Kirby Hocutt was made available to the media for a brief time.
Hocutt opened his press conference with a statement about his contract extension that will keep him in the Athletic Director position through August 31, 2030.
“Well, it’s very humbling and I feel very honored,” Hocutt said. “There’s not a community that I would rather live in, Diane and I will be able to continue to call Lubbock home for the foreseeable future. Hopefully that’s forever.”
Hocutt spoke about his goals for the athletic department during the timeline of his extension.
“I want us to continue to be the best athletic program in the country,” Hocutt said. “We’re not going to shy away from saying that. We want to raise trophies; we want to win championships and we want to do it the right way. We want to work hard every day.”
Hocutt also spoke about the challenges of the continuously changing atmosphere in collegiate athletics.
“We’ve got to continue to navigate what’s in front of us, it’s a changing landscape in college athletics,” Hocutt said. “There are many things that are being talked about at the national level. They’re talking about changing many of the rules that we operate by, whether it be scholarship limitations, if it’s personnel limitations, we have got to continue to be at the forefront of planning for that the best that we can.”
Hocutt spoke about the experience of adding Patrick Mahomes into the Texas Tech Ring of Honor over the weekend in Kansas City.
“It truly surprised Patrick,” Hocutt said. “What a great ambassador, what a great young man Patrick is and he was so appreciative. Just so appreciative of Patrick and his continued loyalty and support for Texas Tech University.”
Hocutt closed his press conference speaking about the baseball facility and the timeline for completion.
“We’re seeing now with the baseball clubhouse, $16 million enhancement that’s underway. That’s going to be like the Womble Basketball Center and Womble Football Center, we will have that for baseball and all of our other sports,” Hocutt said. “It’s going to spread out over the course of two baseball seasons, and that’s by design. Coach Tadlock didn’t want any interruption to his program during a season. It will be finished before the 2023-24 baseball season, June or July of 2023 by design.”
